GLOBAL RESPONSES TO GLOBAL THREATS
Posted: 27 Jul 2006, 12:19
Something that has been drawn to my attention, I've not read it all yet, but it looks good:
Oxford Research Group
Oxford Research Group
In examining these issues, this report offers an overview of four groups of factors that the authors have identified as the root causes of conflict and insecurity in today?s world and the likely determinants of future conflict:
1 Climate change
2 Competition over resources
3 Marginalisation of the majority world
4 Global militarisation
These factors are the trends that are likely to lead to substantial global and regional instability, and large-scale loss of life, of a magnitude unmatched by other potential threats. Current responses to these threats can be characterised as a ?control paradigm? ? an attempt to maintain the status quo through military means and control insecurity without addressing the root causes. The authors argue that current security policies are self-defeating in the long-term, and so a new approach is needed.
This new approach to global security can be characterised as a ?sustainable security paradigm?. The main difference between this and the ?control paradigm? is that this approach does not attempt to unilaterally control threats through the use of force (?attack the symptoms?), but rather it aims to cooperatively resolve the root causes of those threats using the most effective means available (?cure the disease?). For example, a sustainable security approach prioritises renewable energy as the key solution to climate change; energy efficiency as a response to resource competition; poverty reduction as a means to address marginalisation; and the halting and reversal of WMD development and proliferation as a main component of checking global militarisation. These approaches provide the best chance of averting global disaster, as well as addressing some of the root causes of terrorism.